I changed you, don't you get it?
by i.ship.chairphano
Summary: At some point in life everybody meets this one person that makes you question everything about yourself. So what if Haymitch met this person during the time in D-13? Everybody knows, Haymitch isn't the guy who makes friends but she's so completely unlike from everybody he'd ever met. And it's exactly this characteristic she has, that draws him to her.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE HUNGER GAMES, THE OC IS MINE THOUGH, ANY SIMILARITIES TO ALREADY EXISTING CHARACTERS ARE COINCIDENTAL.

Chapter one

**When things go down**

He was running down the halls of District 13. His breath was cracking but he had to get to her before she would wake up and go berserk again. He had to explain what was going to happen to her and pretty much every other person in Panem. He had to explain to her, that she had to be The Mockingjay, that there was no other choice.  
When he finally reached the hospital he stopped a nurse who was quickly rushing through the halls to ask her where Katniss Everdeen is.  
"Umm she is in 427...I think.", the nurse answered before she continued running down the hall.

„423...424...425...426...427!", Haymitch mumbled the numbers of the rooms to himself for some reason. He never mumbled.

He stopped in front of the door for a second to catch his breath. He didn't want Katniss to see that he made any effort to come here. He didn't want to give her any ideas.

Katniss was still asleep when he walked in. There was a chair beside her bed and a tray with food on the table on the other side of the bed. Looking at the food he realized that he didn't eat anything yet. For a second he considered eating the food but then decided against it because Katniss looked like she hadn´t eaten for days.

Haymitch sat down beside her bed and waited for her to wake up. After about ten minutes he laid his forehead on the edge of the mattress. He realized another thing, he wasn't only hungry but tired. Really tired.

The withdrawal was taking its toll on him. He tried to steal medical alcohol once but one of the nurses caught him. The nurse who caught him was more than just angry; she tried to explain to him that he'd be dead if he drank the alcohol.

That was about a week ago now.

A small moan caught his attention. He quickly sat straight up, trying to hide how tired he was. She was already so broken and Haymitch didn't want to give her another reason to worry. Even though she made it look like she hated him for everything he'd done, deep inside he knew that she cared about him. Maybe not much but she did.

Katniss opened her eyes and immediately closed them when she noticed his presence.

"What…", she croaked. Her voice sounded horribly damaged. No wonder after all the screaming back on the hovercraft. He regretted some of the things he called her. It wasn't fair to insult her after everything she went through, but he was mad at her at the time and didn't think further about it.

She took a deep breath and tried again.

"What are…", she coughed but continued to talk. "are you doing here?", the way she looked at him made clear that he wasn't welcome.

He sighted and prepared himself for some various insults. But there came none. Haymitch waited another minute to respond, giving her the time to decide whether she wanted to hear what he had to say or not.

When she didn't answer he spoke.

"Listen we need to clear things out between us. For the sake of the boy.", he spoke quietly, trying not to make her angry. He knew that his pure presence was annoying her.

"_The boy _has a name you know.", she fired at him.

"I know…sorry.", he took a deep breath before talking again. "I'm getting straight to the point here. You have to play your role as the Mockingjay. There is no way around. Meaning, you'll do as i tell you.", Haymitch took a break to give her time to respond.

"Leave me alone.", she turned her head away from him.

"No. Now listen here sweetheart…there is no other choice. If you want to save those people out there in the districts, your loved ones…Peeta, then you have to play along.", he tried to explain it the easiest way possible, but really there was no easy way to explain to a 17 year old girl, that she has to play the figure of hope for millions of desperate people, in a war that could be lost so easily.

"Leave. Me. Alone.", she wasn't in the mood for this Mockingjay bullshit. Not now, not ever again. She just wanted Haymitch to leave her alone. There was nothing she wanted to talk to him about. He lied to her, he betrayed her. He betrayed Peeta by leaving him to the capitol.

"You just don't get it do you?", he was getting pissed. "This is not about you anymore! How can a person be so selfish?", he said it even though knew she wasn't selfish. She was probably the most selfless person he ever met. She cared for her mother and her little sister for years all by herself, she went into the games two times to save her sister and Peeta. She gave herself up to save her loved ones.

But he needed her to come to sense. He needed this sudden reacting to a situation from her. These moments of clarity in her thinking process that made her to what she is now. He needed her to snap and react all by herself like she did when she volunteered for her sister, like she did when she realized what she had to do in order to save Peeta in their first games. He needed her to understand that she was the only one able to give the people out there in the districts hope.

Katniss squeezed her eyes shut, still not willing to even look at him.

"Sweetheart, these people count on their Mockingjay.", he grabbed her hand and planted a small kiss on it. "We all do, you know?", he then left her alone.

After Haymitch had closed the door, Katniss opened her eyes and stared into nothingness. She knew that so, so many people were counting on her and that he didn't actually meant what he said about her being selfish. He was trying to motivate her in his Haymitch-like way. The only thing that didn't fit into what just happened was the way he'd kissed her hand.

Kissing someone's hand, or hugging, or body contact in general wasn't Haymitch's thing at all. It made her uncomfortable because if somebody like him was resorting to such means to convince her of being the Mockingjay, then it was about to go deep downwards.

* * *

So i hope you liked the first chapter. I know, I know the OC isn't in it yet but she will be in the next two chapters for sure.

**_Another thing, english is not my first language, so please correct me if i'm making mistakes. I won't be mad or hate you for it, i want to learn the languages i'm using and any help is welcome._**


	2. Is Nerd really still a thing?

Chapter two

**Is nerd really still a thing?**

_-Two weeks later-_

Haymitch was the last one sitting in the conference room. Everyone else had left to comply with their duties.

Now here he was…exhausted and alone. He wondered if he should go to Katniss but he didn't know what to talk about. She still hated him anyway. He knew he should apologize to her, but apologizing wasn't a thing he did. He'd never apologized for anything in his life. It was probably one of the reasons why no one wanted to befriend with him.

Suddenly the door opened behind him and a young woman walked in. He turned around and looked at her without saying anything, just raising his eyebrows at her sight. She didn't really look like someone from District 13. Her clothes slightly reminded of the boring, grey uniform that every citizen from 13 had to wear. She'd cut off the sleeves of her pullover and was wearing shoes and a jacket that obviously didn't come from here. She had short blond hair, a bit shorter than Haymitch's.

"Oh…umm, are you waiting for the meeting to begin or something like that because I think the that's already over." she said, obviously confused by Haymitch's presence.

"No the meeting is over. I'm just…uh…actually I don't really know what I'm doing here." he said, feeling a smile creep onto is face. Smiling was one of the things that usually didn't belong to him, just like apologizing.

Suddenly he started to question her.

"And what exactly are you doing in here?" he asked a suspicious tone in his voice.

"Whoa hey!" she laughed. "I'm just here to fix the problem with the Computer screens. If you were part of the meeting, then you should've realized that it wasn't doing shit." she answered still smiling.

"Oh…well then. Go ahead, I was about to leave anyway." he said. He stood up and turned to leave, when he suddenly got this weird feeling that he'd met her before.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" he asked her, looking for something familiar about her, while she walked around the huge table to the Computers.

"I'm Cameron Davis. I came here from D-3. Maybe Plutarch or Beetee mentioned me sometime. Oh and I also was part in the conference for the 75th arena before the Quell. Maybe you were there too, I don't remember." she said.

Haymitch tried to remember that conference. He had a vague memory of a presentation held by a young woman. The presentation was about the structure of the arena and the program that was controlling it.

"You presented the structure of the arena, right?", he wanted to make sure that he was remembering correctly for some reason. Usually he wouldn't give a damn about something like this.

"Right. But I didn't just present this arena; I created this masterpiece." she said.

"I'm Haymitch by the way, I won the 50th Game. I'm the guy who let the Mockingjay lose you could say." He looked down to his lap where one of his hands was fumbling with a pen and smiled at his statement.

"I know who you are. Who wouldn't, I mean you had some pretty funny appearances on TV." she laughed at him and then turned around to begin with her work. Haymitch's smile grew wider at her implications.

'_What the hell? Stop smiling like a drunk idiot!' _he thought to himself.

"Yeah…as a victor you constantly have to entertain the Capitol, y'know? That's the payback for beating their game." he still wasn't looking at her.

"I thought so." she answered, while typing something into the computer.

"You're part of the meetings that are held in here, right? I suppose then you know who Beetee is. I work a few levels further down with him or more like I work for him. Anyways, did you see him today, because I really need to talk to him about a project we're working on and I haven't seen him for two days now…", she said, typing some code into one of the computers.

"Yes, I do know him, but I haven't seen him today either. Though now that I think about it, I'll be on a meeting with him tomorrow. I could tell him that you're looking for him if you want me to." he was surprising himself by trying to help out a complete stranger. Well, Cameron wasn't a complete stranger anymore but still.

"Oh how nice of you. I didn't know the drunkard of District 12 is such a gentleman in real life." He couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Yet another thing that made him smile.

Haymitch looked up and watched her for a few seconds. Judging by the way she modified the District-13 uniform, so that it didn't look like the uniform at all and by her appearance in general she couldn't be much older than 20.

"So you work down where all the other nerds at?", he was getting interested in who she was.

She abruptly turned around to face him and stared at him like she just saw a ghost.

"What?" Haymitch sounded way more aggressive than he intended to.

She then burst out laughing. She laughed so genuine that his heart skipped a beat. He couldn't remember making a woman laugh like this ever before. Even though he didn't know why she was laughing.

"Man, I didn't know "Nerd" was still a thing. The last time I heard that, was in one of the movies from before the dark days! No one says that anymore. You either have to be very interested in old languages or you're old as fuck if you still now words like that!", she said, now leaning against the desk behind her so she could face Haymitch. She was still laughing.

"Um old as fuck?…insulting strangers isn't very nice, you know. I think I'll have to teach you a lesson about not insulting a stranger." he said pretending to be hurt by her words. It startled him how open she talked to him, even though she didn't know him. He smiled once again.

"Oh yeah? And where do I sign up for these lessons?", there was nothing seductive in her voice and there weren't any hidden implications but Haymitch still felt the need to take her some place a bit more private than this damn conference room. He felt a really weird affection to her even though he only knew her for about five minutes now. She managed to do something to him, no one else managed in about 26 years now. She made him smile and make normal conversation. She seemed so different from the rest of the people he knew.

'_Don't get any ideas Abernathy. Do I have to remind you that she's like 20 and you know her for about five minutes? She's just being nice because she doesn't know you.' _His conscience was kicking in.

But why would he listen to his godforsaken conscience? Morality sure wasn't one of his characteristics.

"How about you and I go drink something together when this whole thing here is over?" he responded without really thinking about it.

'_Dammit! Shut the fuck up you idiot!'_

"So first of all, _if_ this whole revolution thing here comes to an end and second, why the hell not? Not like I've got any better plans for after the war than having a drink with an alcoholic." she said still typing. "Or…you know we could just go eat dinner in a few minutes. That's faster and way cheaper I would say."

"Sounds good to me." He said.

"But I have to warn you, the dogs will eat you alive if you should have any funny motives." she said with a grin. Now there was an implication.

'_How can a person possibly smile that much in a place like this?' _Haymitch thought while deciding whether this whole thing was a good idea or not.

"The dogs?" he raised an eyebrow. He felt like his attempt to keep this conversation going was too obvious to not notice.

"Oh the dogs are like… my team you know? They're the guys to do all the dirty work like hacking the security system of the Capitol so we can broadcast Plutarch's propos on Capitol TV and all that stuff. I call them that because if I'd say_ jump off the roof_ they would jump off the roof.", she said, again waving her hand in the air.

Haymitch tried to keep that in mind as well as this gesture she's been doing every time she explained something to him, maybe this hand-waving thing was something like a quirk of hers. He assumed she did this when she explained something.

He wanted to ask her about how she ended up with the rebels but he decided that he could ask her about that while having dinner.

"If you want to be in time for dinner you better hurry up." he said.

"Almost done…", she mumbled, frantically typing.

* * *

While Cameron finished her work, Haymitch stoop up and collected his papers. When he finished he leaned against the door frame, impatiently waiting for her.

He watched her doing her work, realizing that he hadn't found anyone that attractive in a long time. Not just her appearance but how she talked and smiled. Unfortunately just when she turned around to face him, he was checking her out. She raised one eyebrow and laid her head skew like a dog would do when it heard a suspicious noise.

"I've got some awesome pants, don't you think?", she said while grabbing her keycard and walking over to him. She then leaned closer to him and said: "Though I doubt they would suit you."

He rolled his eyes and chuckled following her out of the conference room, closing the door behind them.


End file.
